Of Storm And Fire
by hapan
Summary: Seven half-bloods shall answer the call, but not all of them were supposed to make it to the end. Annabeth fulfilled her part of the prophecy by freeing the Athena Parthenos. Percy was supposed to choose the world over her, but some choices are impossible, even for the son of Poseidon. A re-telling of HoH & BoO, based on the idea that Percy messed up by falling with Annabeth.
1. Chapter 1

Did falling count as flying, if you did it for long enough?

It wouldn't surprise Percy if Zeus took the opportunity, to be honest. He wasn't exactly on friendly terms with the King of the Gods, who had always been better at saying sorry than asking permission anyway.

And he sucked at saying sorry. It was a sign of how dire things were, that he was half-hoping for a smiting. Or, more specifically, a pre-smiting trial. One that involved Percy and Annabeth being whisked out of this literal hell-hole before they hit the ground. Percy had never been a big fan of Olympus, but he'd take it over whatever was waiting for them at the bottom.

Annabeth's lips brushed his ear; he clutched her reflexively tighter before he even heard what she was saying. _I love you_. The taste of guilt in the back of his throat was almost enough to choke him, but he shifted anyway, pressing his forehead to hers.

"I love you," he whispered back, and an ocean of regret threatened to swallow him whole. He should have told her before now. He should have said it the second he saw her again, or at least in the moments after she'd laid him on the ground. "I love you, I love you-"

"Shh." Her cheeks were wet as she kissed him, clutching his face in both hands, trusting him to hold onto her. "Shh, shh, Percy, it's okay."

It wasn't okay, but explaining that when they were falling to their certain deaths seemed a little redundant. He expected Annabeth knew that, anyway. The whistling in his ears grew louder and louder as gravity increased on them, rushing into a scream and a roar of hot air and sound as the hole spat them into a giant cavern.

 _Oh_ , Percy thought dizzily. _So this is hell_.

In the split second before Annabeth started screaming, he took it all in. The heat, the stench, the strange, rusty colour of it all. The _air_ hurt, which was a new one, but not exactly surprising. Something pulled at the bottom of his stomach, sluggish and familiar and awful in some new way.

"Percy!" Annabeth yelled. "Water!"

It didn't seem to follow that there would be water in a place like Tartarus, but as Percy had recently learned, there was such a thing as good and bad water. The water here was, without a doubt, the bad kind, but what was he supposed to do? Let them splatter like eggs in the frying pan of hell? A dim wailing curled in his ears, beating through his skull. He looked at Annabeth, and nodded, and wasn't sure if he was more terrified of the water, or what awaited them beyond it.

Yelling helped. So did slamming into the water like the fist of an angry god, except for the part where the water hit back. _Weak,_ the voices whispered. _Pathetic. What son of a sea god is afraid of drowning?_

The water closed over his head. _Give up_ , it crooned. _You'll never save her. She's going to die here because you weren't enough._

Annabeth's hand was tight around his. The voices were right, or they would be if Percy didn't get his act together. He rose above the tide of panic in his chest, enough to grasp at the weight of the river, enough to push them towards the air.

 _Such an easy thing, to drown_. The water pulled at his limbs even as he swirled it around them, draining his energy, making it hard to breathe, let alone think. _Let go. Let go. All you have to do is nothing._

"Land," Annabeth croaked. "Go sideways."

His grip on the water slipped, although he never once thought of letting her go. Apparently she had the same idea, hooking her arm around his waist. _Why bother trying? What are you going to do if you reach land? You're in Tartarus now. It's pointless._

"Pointless," he mumbled. It was so cold, and he was so useless. The water encroached on him, welcoming him home.

The punch to his arm was unexpected. "Percy Jackson!" Annabeth yelled, or at least it sounded like yelling when her face was that close to him. "I did not spend months of my life tearing the world apart looking for you, only to lose you to some emo river. _Swim_ , you big lump!"

 _That_ was going a bit far, in Percy's personal opinion. Percynal. He snorted, got a nose full of icy water for his trouble as he thrashed to keep his head above water. _There's nothing left for you but pain and misery. You are already one of us_.

"Tell me about your plans," Annabeth demanded. "You had a whole future planned for us, don't you dare give up on me before I can figure out how to improve it. Don't think I won't haunt you all the way to Elysium, Seaweed Brain."

 _You aren't going to Elysium_. But the voices seemed weaker now, somehow, distant. The force of Annabeth's voice, even choked with water, overwhelmed them. _Only...heroes...go…_

"New Rome," he spluttered. "Architecture. Houses."

"You're going to plunk me down in the middle of a bunch of Romans?"

 _Stupid!_ the voices crowed triumphantly, but Percy knew Annabeth, knew that for all of their bickering and insults, she had never thought he was stupid. Or at least, not since he was twelve. Or at least, not since he had figured out that she _liked_ him liked him.

Loved him. Annabeth had said she loved him.

"What're you gonna do?" Another lungful of water. He choked it up. "Build a whole new town in the middle of Camp Halfblood?"

She laughed, the sound wild and desperate and _enough_. The wailing dimmed again, like her laughter had pressed the flush on a toilet. "Why not? I'll put our house on the beach."

"Safe," he agreed, as his limbs started to work again. They swam for the shore together. "We can make it safe, for Greeks as well as Romans."

"Better taste in statues, though."

" _Way_ better taste."

* * *

Over the course of his short (by human standards; he was running about average for demigods) life, Percy had had a lot of crappy experiences. It sort of came with the territory, which was a thought that made him so bleakly angry, he had to stuff it somewhere deep in his chest in order to focus properly. Rage at the gods might have felt satisfying, but it would get them killed if he wasn't careful.

Drinking liquid fire didn't exactly seem to fit the definition of careful, but it definitely rated up there on the 'crappy experience' meter. The single point of sanity in the world right now was Annabeth, and he clung to her like a lifeline as the Phlegethon seared its way through his body. As bad as it was, watching her do it had been worse. The voices from the river clung to him like cobwebs, no matter how hard he tried to brush their memory away.

 _She's going to die here because you weren't enough._

It wasn't the most cheerful thought in the world to keep him going, but it worked now in a way it hadn't in the river. She wasn't going to die. He was going to get her out of this place if it killed him.

Looking around at the blighted environment, it just might. But he was trying for positivity here, sort of.

"We'll find a way out," he said, memory stirring. Now that the immediate issues of survival had been addressed, he found he could think past the next two seconds. "The Doors of Death."

He had made Nico promise. Which, now that he could do that thinking thing, seemed a little unfair. The kid was fourteen, and had literally just been pulled out a jar. How was he supposed to lead anyone anywhere? In Percy's defense, there hadn't been a lot of time for planning when they were dangling over the side of a cliff, but-

That roiling sense of unfairness surged up his throat again, bitter and foul. While the gods were off dealing with their Issues, a bunch of teenagers was thrashing about the world, trying to save it from inevitable annihilation. It was all Percy could do to force himself to continue the conversation about what they were going to do, as Annabeth gave him that look of vague panic that happened every time she had to voice a plan she hadn't fully thought out yet.

"Well." She took a deep breath, and Percy breathed with her. It seemed like a good idea, in the face of the riot of emotion in his gut. "If we stay close to the river, we'll have a way to heal ourselves. If we go downstream-"

"Spider!" Percy yelped, because - well. Giant spider. He reacted without thinking, shoving Annabeth out of the way as a massive collection of legs and ugly hurtled out of the darkness at her.

"You have to be kidding me!" Whatever fingers of panic had been scrabbling at Annabeth before, they were replaced with a spitting anger now. They both scrambled to their feet as the monster - Arachne, he guessed - slammed on the breaks and skittered around for another shot. "First you drag us to _Tartarus_ , and now you don't even have the courtesy to be _dead_. You - you-!"

Percy was paralysed. He had his sword, but Annabeth hadn't pulled out her dagger yet, and while he definitely understood the urge to start screaming at the world, he wanted to live to scream at the world from a more tropical vantage point. He uncapped Riptide and hesitated for a split second too long, torn between going on the offense against Arachne, or being on the defense to be sure Annabeth was safe.

The split-second past, and his girlfriend quite literally ripped the choice from his hand. A horrible wail echoed through the canyon as she sliced through the monster with the ease of a master swordsperson. She stood, panting and covered in yellow dust, looking like some goddess of vengeance as Riptide hissed in the poisoned air of Tartarus.

"Uh," he said, after a beat or two had passed. "Wow."

Annabeth stared at her hands for a second, before straightening abruptly, handing Riptide back to him. "Sorry," she said. "I really hate spiders."

He made to recap his sword, and thought better about it. As Arachne had just proved, every second down here counted. A tiny nugget of dissatisfaction burrowed into his gut, adding to all the others. "She deserved worst."

Annabeth glanced over at him, expression startled and...something else. Something he didn't recognise. But he was too focused on that sense of dissatisfaction to investigate the feeling more closely.

"Well," she said slowly. "She's dead, and that's one less thing to worry about."

It didn't seem like _enough_. Arachne had hurt Annabeth - tortured her, because of something her mother had done centuries ago. Honestly, Percy didn't doubt that whatever Athena had done had been shitty, that was how the gods worked. But Annabeth hadn't had anything to do with it. Like the rest of the immortal things that crossed over into their world, Arachne had taken a grudge to extreme measures and ruined everyone else's life because of it.

"Right," Percy said, dragging his thoughts back to the present. "What were you saying before? Something about downstream?"

"Yeah," she managed. "If the river comes from the upper levels of the Underworld, it should flow deeper into Tartarus."

"So it leads into more dangerous territory." Great. Except, Percy wasn't sure he meant that thought all that sarcastically. His fingers itched to kill something. "Which is probably where the Doors are. Lucky us."

"We're demigods." Annabeth gave his shoulder a tired nudge. "We're made of luck. Bad luck counts, right?"

It tugged the requisite laugh from him. He tried not to let it sound too pathetic, as they laced their fingers together and started to make their way downstream. He keeps his other hand firmly on Riptide's hilt.

"Hey," he said, thinking about the way she'd pulled it from his grasp. "What happened to your dagger?"

The spasm of pain that sliced across her face made him wish he hadn't asked. She tipped it up to the surging clouds overhead, trying to hide her expression from him.

"I dropped it."

* * *

For all that they'd only gone a few hundred yards, the sound of voices didn't really surprise Annabeth. The chances of the voices belonging to anyone - or any _thing_ \- friendly were slim to none, and it wasn't in the nature or purpose of Tartarus to give anyone a break. Honestly, she was surprised they hadn't immediately been beset by monsters from all sides, instead of just Arachne.

 _Just Arachne_. Annabeth tried to summon up whatever terrible feeling she had seen written on Percy's face after she'd killed the monster. All she could manage was relief. Maybe a little bit of satisfaction, but certainly not displeasure. Her enemy was dead. She doubted her fear of spiders was going anywhere soon, but the root cause - the source of the thing that had haunted her for years and years - was gone. And she had defeated it in every conceivable way.

 _She deserved worse_. Maybe she had. But Annabeth's fatal flaw was hubris, the same as Arachne. She couldn't help but wonder what she might have turned into, after all those long centuries.

The voices - female, multiple - dragged her thoughts back to reality, made her even more achingly aware of her lack of weapon. She still had her brain, of course, and she wasn't beaten down enough to discount that. But she would have felt better with a dagger. And something to drink. Maybe some pizza. Gods, she was turning into Percy.

" _Empousai_ ," she muttered, as the voices argued on. Her boyfriend nodded grimly - he had almost as much of a reason to remember Kelli and the rest of them as Annabeth did. Logically, Annabeth knew she couldn't blame the monster for Luke's downfall, that her old friend had made his own choices all the way to the end.

But she did anyway. Just a little bit. She wished for her dagger even harder, like that might somehow make it fall out of the sky - or what passed for it here in Tartarus. She'd stabbed Kelli once before, but really? It would be nice to do it again.

Eavesdropping on the monsters, it wasn't all that hard to put two and two together. Was that hope or anticipation stirring in her gut as Percy pointed out that they were heading for the Doors of Death? Maybe it was just hunger. The human body could survive days, weeks without food, but most human bodies weren't in Tartarus. They probably wouldn't starve to death, if it was possible. Dehydration would get them first.

Tracking the _empousai_ was an exercise in masochism, between the fear that they would get caught, and dealing with the greater Tartarus environment. Annabeth thought that if there was anything left in her stomach, it would have long ago come up.

"I can't tell," she said when they reached the top of the cliff, because of course there was another cliff, "whether we should be pleased right now, or dismayed."

Percy squeezed her hand, looking out at the grim landscape before them. A primordial sort of fear shivered through her at the sight of all those monsters funneling towards the same place - the place they themselves were trying to get to. At least they were headed in the right direction.

"Both," he said, nodding as firmly as his tired head would allow him. "I'm thinking both."

They started to pick their way down the cliff, one aching movement at a time.

"Do you think it counts as flying if you're in Tartarus?" Percy panted.

Staring at him was difficult, in the middle of hell, but Annabeth managed it. "What?"

"We're underground, right? Zeus' big deal is with the sky. So, say we could fly right over this mess to the Doors - you think he'd count it?"

Annabeth didn't really have the breath to spare on laughing, but it happened anyway. "The question's sort of academic," she pointed out. "Seeing as neither of us can fly."

"Yeah, but if we could." He dropped down onto a ledge first, turned around to help her. She didn't really need it - or at least, she didn't need it any more than he did - but she understood Percy's need to feel useful. For now, at least, she was willing to indulge it. "Do you think he'd care?"

"Oh, I know he'd care. But the Underworld, even Tartarus, is all under Hades' domain. Hades'd protest any smiting attempts as encroaching on his domain, whether or not it counts. Between that and the fact that you're Poseidon's favourite son, I think we'd probably be okay. If we could fly."

For a second, Percy's face was overtaken by the same sort of blackness they were currently working their way towards. It was enough to make her breath catch in her throat, and she couldn't pick what she'd said that had caused it. And then it was gone, like it had never existed.

He laughed. "Trust you to logic us out of a problem we don't even have."

"Hey, you asked."

They drag themselves down another few feet. It feels like a mile.

"Maybe we'll find the shoes."

Annabeth found herself repeating her staring trick from before. "Percy, what?"

"The ones Luke gave me, back in the day." He didn't look at her now, forging his way ahead. "With wings."

The ones that had tried to drag him to...here. She tried to banish the memory, failed miserably. Tartarus was exactly the sort of place to start dredging up memories of Luke. "I think," she said slowly, letting go of Percy's hand to navigate a particularly difficult descent, "that if we did find them, they'd already be flapping. Just out of reach."

After what seemed like an age (plus a couple of breaks), they reached the bottom. Their success didn't really bring Annabeth any relief; they'd overcome one hurdle, but that only meant they were that much closer to the next. About the only advantage the flat ground brought was the fact that she could tangle her hand with Percy's again. She wasn't sure which one of them was clinging harder, but that was a comfort. No matter what else happened, they were here together. They were going to get through this together.

She probably should have focussed a little less on the hand holding. Not that it wasn't a small piece of wonderful in the face of this hellscape, but combined with their joint misery, it had been sort of distracting.

That probably had something to do with why they were now surrounded.

"Percy Jackson," Kelli the cheerleader cooed. "How awesome! I don't even have to return to the mortal world to destroy you!"

"Hey!" Annabeth protested. "I'm the one who stabbed you."

Not her brightest moment, but in Annabeth's defense, she was very tired.

"Oh, yes," Kelli hissed, touching her sternum. "I remember you, Annabeth Chase."

In Annabeth's personal opinion, the shit-talking that followed was truly inspired stuff. Judging from the looks Percy kept giving her, he was impressed as well. Which was nice. She'd take all the good feelings she could get, right now. Bringing up Luke was like a little prick of pain, sharper now than it had been in months, but she ignored it.

This was Tartarus. Everything had to be a weapon here.

Unfortunately, she misjudged. Not much - her words are enough to get the monsters fighting amongst themselves. But Kelli was exactly as powerful as her cheerleader uniform implied - you didn't get to be head of a squad without some serious hold over the other girls, and apparently the same rule applied to _empousai_. Annabeth thought something about a _cheerocracy_ a little giddily, as the monsters moved in to the attack.

There was no stealing the sword from Percy this time, and she'd never been one for weapons with a long reach anyway. She left him to his thing, rolling on the ground and picking up a rock as she went. _Convenient_ , she thought, slamming it into Kelli's face. The monster screamed, and Annabeth took advantage of her distraction to scoop up a handful of gravel, throwing it in her face as Percy took on the others. When this was over, they were going to have a conversation about the fair division of labour.

Except Kelli, jealous and enraged as she was, was still a monster. And Annabeth, resourceful and intelligent, was still an exhausted mortal with a rock. The lunge didn't take her by surprise, exactly, but there wasn't anything she could _do_ about it. The heft of Kelli's body sent her crashing to the ground, the _empousa_ snarling with triumph. Annabeth's fingers, already wrecked and trembling from so, so much climbing, drop the rock.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Percy. Monsters hanging off him, still striving to get to her. _It can't end like this_ , she thought, reaching for him, the rock, anything. _It can't._

"You know what your problem is, Kelli?" The voice came from overhead, tugging something deep and primal in the pit of Annabeth's gut. She knew that confidence, that arrogance. She _knew_ it. "You've always been just a little bit too _eager_."

And Luke Castellan fell out of the sky in flying chucks, wielding a celestial bronze dagger.


	2. Chapter 2

Hazel was, to be quite honest, getting a bit tired of this cryptic business. It came hand in hand with being a halfblood, but you'd think that with the end of the world rushing up on them, the gods would get over themselves. About the only thing that stopped her from mouthing off at Hecate was the presence of the witch-weasel, and Hecuba Queen of the Kennel. The last thing any of them needed was Hazel getting turned into a porcupine.

"Which option has Percy and Annabeth okay at the end?" It was a struggle to keep her voice steady under the relentless stare of the goddess of magic, but she managed.

Hecate tipped her head to one side, considering. "Percy Jackson was warned," she said. "So were his companions. And yet, when the crossroads approached, he chose wrong and endangered more than just himself."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The son of Poseidon and daughter of Athena are in Tartarus. No path remains in which they are both 'okay'." Her mouth twisted around the word like it tasted bad.

Tears pricked at Hazel's eyes. She swallowed them down angrily, forcing herself to ask. "Alive, then. How do we make sure they live?"

Silence.

"Hecate? Please. _Please_."

"You cannot make sure," she said finally. "But I will show you the path that does not end in certain death for those two."

It was only after Hazel had returned to the others and told them what she'd learnt that she considered the emphasis the goddess had put on _those two._

* * *

There was nothing like the scream of a woman scorned, Annabeth thought grimly. She shoved Kelli off her while the empousa was distracted by the ghost of boyfriends past, more screams from the side indicating that Percy had taken advantage of the distraction as well.

"You-" Kelli snarled. " _You-!_ "

Luke grinned. It was a nasty expression, made worse by the gaunt hollows in his face. "I know I'm looking good, but there's no need to get speechless on me. Annabeth, catch!"

Annabeth reacted on an instinct born from some deep and buried part of her. She had thought it dead a long time ago, but when Luke told her to catch, her arm came up before her brain could question his motives.

"You son of a-" Percy yelled, but Luke had thrown the dagger _to_ her, not _at_ her. Annabeth snatched the weapon out of the air, packaged her feelings up into a neat box, and slid celestial bronze between Kelli's ribs. It all happened so fast, the empousa was still looking at Luke when she died.

It was almost distressingly easy after that. With a weapon in her hand Annabeth regained her ruthless efficiency, and Percy could focus properly. They worked their way through the monsters to fight back to back, while overhead, Luke pulled out a wicked looking sword and...helped.

Finally, silence, except for the awful ambience of Tartarus and their own breathing. Annabeth fumbled for Percy's hand and squeezed hard enough to cut the circulation, or at least that was what it felt like. Luke dipped a little in mid-air, glancing over his shoulder before he set himself on the ground.

He ran a hand through his hair. It was longer than he preferred to keep it, dirty and lank and flopping into his eyes. The scar that sliced under the left one seemed thicker than before, but that might have been due to the thinness of his face. With a sick sort of curiosity, Annabeth wondered if there was one under his arm.

Did death wounds scar?

"Thought I was throwing it at her?" A wry...something twisted Luke's mouth. It was too grim to be called a smile. "Guess I can't blame you."

Percy's hand twitched in hers, but he stayed silent. Waiting, she realised, for her cue.

"You-" Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat, tried again. "You're supposed to-"

But whatever Luke was supposed to be was lost to a thundering sound approaching at speed. Annabeth and Percy swung to face it at the same time - the direction Luke had looked back in. He seemed vaguely alarmed by this.

"No, it's cool," he said hurriedly. "You're not in any danger."

Ten feet of Titan crashing onto the scene begged to differ.

* * *

Percy wondered vaguely if he had started hallucinating.

All things considered, it didn't seem unlikely. They had fallen into hell. The lingering voices of misery still lingered in his head, _weak, pathetic, pointless_. Why not visions? Returning to a time when his biggest problem was Luke and a bunch of Titans - while not, admittedly, an insignificant kind of problem, it was something he had tackled before.

He brought his sword up. And that was when the Titan turned his silver gaze on the two halfbloods, and grinned widely. "Percy! See, Luke? I told you I heard friends."

Both Percy and Annabeth turned, slowly, to stare at Luke. To his credit, he shifted uncomfortably under the combined weight, making zero effort to pretend like this was in any way a normal situation.

"This is Bob," Luke said finally. His face twisted again, in that way Percy thought meant he was trying to smile. "You're already acquainted, Percy, but I'm guessing this is Annabeth's first time meeting our Titan friend."

Percy had, after Luke died, called for a shroud. He had understood Luke, or at least, thought he did. Maybe now, he understood more than ever - the resentment that simmered in the pit of your stomach, just waiting to boil over under the right set of circumstances. He'd kind of put Luke's douche behaviour down to that resentment, and the whole Kronos situation.

Now he wondered if Luke hadn't just always been a dick.

"Hi, Bob," Annabeth said. Her hand was a vice on Percy's. He couldn't blame her.

"Nice to meet you, friend Annabeth." The Titan frowned, noticing a bloody scrape the empousai had given her.

He glanced at Luke, who nodded. Both Annabeth and Percy tensed as Bob reached out to touch her, but a second passed, and the wound was gone. He remembered, dimly, Bob doing the same thing back when he had stopped being Iapetus and started being Bob.

Something ugly squirmed in Percy's gut at Luke assuming he could give permission for someone else to touch Annabeth. If possible, she grew even more tense.

"We're exposed here," said Luke, glancing around. "Come on, I'll take you back to base. It's not exactly safe, but-"

"No."

It was Annabeth who spoke, and the acid in her voice surprised all of them. Luke's mouth twisted down for a second - pain, or irritation? Percy couldn't tell.

"Annabeth-"

"The last time we saw you, you were trying to kill everyone! You tried to kill _me_."

"I stopped," he protested. "I put an end to it."

"After how many people died," she said, ice in her voice. "Why are you even here? I thought you were going for rebirth."

It was well-hidden. Annabeth was a sight to behold when she was angry, and Percy doubted even Luke, who had known her longer than almost anyone, would be able to see past that. As a rule, Luke had never been especially great at dealing with being attacked by Annabeth. Rich, for someone who had trapped her under the weight of the world.

But Percy knew her. Maybe he hadn't known her as long as Luke, but he'd sure as hell been there for her when Luke hadn't. There was a crack in that ice, a chasm of hurt only barely frosted over. She was angry, because if she didn't embrace that anger, there would only be pain left.

"We don't have to stay," he said quietly, swallowing down his own anger. He could do that, for her. "We just have to keep following the river towards the doors, like the original plan."

"I wanted to help," Luke said. They both turned to stare at him again. Next to him, Bob shifted, clearly uncomfortable.

"Help with what? Did you know this was happening? That Gaia was going to rise?" The harsh note of accusation in Annabeth's tone fit right into the atmosphere.

"No! Fates, Annabeth, what do you take me for?"

" _What do you think?_ "

"FRIENDS," Bob bellowed. A primal note of fear and danger sang through Percy's bones. The Titan seemed docile for now, but he was still a Titan. It hadn't been so long ago that they were trying to take over the world. It hadn't been so long ago that Percy had fought _this particular Titan_. "This place is not safe. Especially not safe for mortals." He nodded, like he was confirming that fact for himself. "We must keep moving before they catch us."

"They?" Percy blurted. He didn't mean to, wanted to stay quiet so Annabeth could do or say whatever she needed to without interruption from him. But 'they' and 'catch' called for a little more immediate action.

Silver eyes regarded him. There was a kindness there, but not the unreserved simplicity he'd seen when Bob had first come into being. Bob knew something about Percy. Not enough that he wasn't calling him 'friend', but _something_ to make him the mind-wiped Titan version of suspicious.

"We must go," Bob declared. "Come. I know where it is safe."

"No!" It was Luke's turn to blurt. "Not that one. There's one further off."

"We're not going anywhere _further off_ ," Annabeth growled. "And Bob, I appreciate your offering to help, but I'm not sure we should trust you."

"That is fair," Bob agreed. "But this is Tartarus. It is not safe here for you. We cannot stay."

Who did 'you' refer to, though? Was it safe for Bob? Was it safe for Luke?

"What issue does Luke have with the place you want to take us to?" Percy tried. Honestly, he wasn't sure what to do with the whole 'dead enemy back to life in front of him' situation. Somehow, addressing a janitorial Titan seemed like the more sensible option.

If anything in this place could be considered sensible. Bob's words itched at the back of his mind. _Before they catch us_. There were about a million different monsters that could refer to.

Bob turned again to look at Luke. The scar seemed ever starker as the older guy clearly struggled with something - although what it was, who knew?

"It isn't safe," Bob said again, softly, and whatever struggle Luke was having one side won out.

"Fine," he muttered. "There's nothing wrong with it. It's personal. You'll see when we get there, I guess. You never were stupid."

He looked at Annabeth as he said it - in fact, he barely seemed able to take his eyes off her. Percy could relate, but he didn't especially want to. A distant memory pinged, Luke struggling to keep talking as Annabeth bent over him. _Did you love me?_

He had to focus on her. At the end of the day, Luke was Annabeth's demon, not his. She turned her face up to his, grey eyes scanning his face. Once, maybe, this would have been an angry discussion, one of bruised egos and jealousy and fear. It probably even would have happened out loud.

Now, all it takes is that brief look. A silent discussion: _do you want-? okay, yeah. I love you. (I love you)._

Annabeth turned back to Luke. "We'll go. At least until we get to this safe place of yours."

"Okay." And there was a noticeable sag to his shoulders. Percy thought it might have been relief, but there was something else in the gesture as well. _Not that one_ , Luke had said.

They were already in Tartarus. What was it about this place that made it more avoidable than the rest?

* * *

"Walk in front," Annabeth said shortly. There was nothing she could do to _make_ Luke follow that order, short of actively attacking him. They all knew it. Luke gave that stupid little twist of his both and a short, sardoic bow, stepping ahead of them.

"I will take the rear," Bob declared happily. Most everything Bob said was said happily. Considering their location, it was more than a little unsettling.

Annabeth glanced back at Percy, who shrugged a little helplessly. Neither of them were happy about having a Titan at their back, but of all the monsters in Tartarus who might sneak up behind them, she supposed Bob was the best option. At least he wasn't _guaranteed_ to try and stab them in the back.

Luke led them along the banks of the Phlegethon. Annabeth did her best to just concentrate on each successive step, on getting _through_ this, but it wasn't in her nature to stop thinking. Her eyes were drawn inevitably back to Luke every couple of seconds, when she wasn't keeping them peeled for possible attacks from every direction - he'd come from the sky, after all.

And _gods_ , wasn't that just like him? He'd always craved attention, acknowledgement. Why get the drop on Kelli when you could announce your entrance to everyone for greatest effect? She knew she should stop squeezing Percy's hand at some point soon, but she couldn't seem to unknot her fingers from his. He was, currently, the only thing in the whole world that made sense.

"You said you wanted to help," she called ahead finally, hyperaware of the biting tone to her voice. "So you're saying that you came here on your own? Voluntarily?"

The thing was, maintaining her anger was the only way she could think of to deal with this situation. Luke was here. Luke was _here_ , in Tartarus. Luke, who had betrayed her and redeemed himself and died. It was a lot easier to accept that redemption when you didn't have to deal with the fallout of it.

And it was a lot easier to deal with your oldest friend dying when you could tell yourself he was going to the land of heroes in the afterlife.

Luke glanced at her over his shoulder. It hadn't escaped Annabeth's notice that his focus was almost entirely on her, Percy a cautious afterthought to make sure he wasn't about to have Riptide at his throat. Of course, he'd only ever really known Percy as an enemy. He didn't know that Percy had called for a shroud, that Percy had held the gods accountable for Luke's mistakes.

Annabeth had been the one to hold him as he died. That built a connection between them, she supposed, even though he had done everything in his power to rip and tear the old one.

"The Underworld is not a vault," he said. "Obviously. The two of you are here, and neither of you are dead."

"How do you know _that_."

He snorted. "You really expect me to believe _you two_ of all people are going to end up in Tartarus when you go?"

That...was a good point. Annabeth had feared for her life more times than she could count, but she had never really worried about her afterlife. The singular, solitary small mercy of being a halfblood, she supposed.

"The shoes." Percy nodded at Luke's chucks. "They came down another hole."

 _Because you gave them to me to drag me here_ hung thickly in the air between them all. Luke turned his head forward to the seething murk of Tartarus. "You remember that, huh?"

"It's not exactly something you forget quickly."

"Right."

There was a pause where Annabeth wondered if he would apologise. But what would be the point? It was hardly the last horrific thing Luke had done. The dizzying list spun through Annabeth's mind, making her doubt the course of action they were taking. Luke had redeemed himself. Luke had done so many terrible things to require redeeming. Luke had been under Kronos' control. Luke had invited Kronos in.

"I snuck out," he continued, in lieu of anything better to do. "The gods were going crazy, the other souls were whispering about Gaia and the earth rising, and - yeah, I got a sense of deja vu. Maybe I should have stayed away. But the Doors were lost and monsters kept pouring into the mortal world. Even I couldn't find a way to sneak out of Elysium into life again, but it's a hell of a lot easier to get into Tartarus. People aren't exactly lining up to get here."

Behind her, Annabeth heard Bod shift. She whipped around to look at him; he was staring at Luke, a troubled frown on his face. When he noticed her looking, that bright, innocent smile cracked across his face again. He gave her a little wave. Not sure what else to do, Annabeth waved back. Next to her, almost silently, Percy huffed out a little laugh.

She elbowed him. He elbowed her back, and things might have devolved from there, a sliver of ridiculousness against the bleak awfulness of the terrain, if not for Luke.

It was impossible to escape the reality of Luke, standing in front of her now. Anger shivered through Annabeth again, without source and without direction. What was she supposed to do with it? What was she supposed to do with _him._

"So why did you? Line up, I mean. Sneak in here. There wasn't anything you could do from Elysium? And I thought you were going to try for the Isles of the Blessed. You seem to be remembering us just fine."

"I don't remember there being an _us_ ," he said dryly, gesturing at her hand wound tightly around Percy's. Whatever good humour Bob's little wave had engendered vanished, like it had never existed in the first place. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised though."

"Guess it's not really any of your business," Percy shot back. "Answer her questions."

" _Hey_." Luke whirled on him, hand twitching towards his mean-looking sword. Percy didn't wait for him to follow through, pulling Riptide out without a breath of hesitation. Luke's hand fell back, although an ugly cloud of irritation stormed across his features. "I'm not your captive here, Jackson. In case you didn't notice, I saved your ass back there."

He'd saved _both_ their asses, actually, but Annabeth was getting the feeling that Luke had put her and Percy in two very separate categories.

"Yeah? I'll take if off your tab. Y'know, considering how many time you've tried to _kill me_ before."

"Percy," Annabeth said, and for the first time since Luke had shown up she felt her tone modulate a bit, softening. "It's not worth it."

It was hard for him. Percy's hold on his temper had always been a bit wonky, although not - in Annabeth's opinion - in a bad way. But she remembered the rage in his voice after she'd killed Arachne, and worried.

He swallowed. She breathed. "Okay," he said. "Okay."

Footsteps announced that Luke was moving again, not looking back at them. They all lurched into motion, their separate steps drowned out by the thunder of Bob behind them. Bubbles of membrane and monsters rose up around them - _zits on the face of Tartarus_. Luke popped them savagely as they went, the white of his sword drenched red in the strange light of the land around them.

It occurred to Annabeth that she still hadn't gotten her answers.

"We are close," Bob said eventually, voice quiet in a way his steps hadn't been. No other monsters had been drawn near by all the noise he made.

Maybe no other monsters were stupid enough to put themselves in close proximity to a Titan. They crested a ridge, the hazy landscape giving way to crater-like dent dotted with black marble columns and what looked to be an...altar?

"Rest stop, sweet rest stop," Luke said. Bitterness had eaten anything recognisable from his tone. "Welcome to the shrine of Hermes."


End file.
